Though the clothes and the music and the specific events make Detroit‘s setting of 1967 clear, it’s shot in a haphazard, shaky manner that suggests that this could be happening right now. The point is pretty clear of course, as the events recreated here, racial inequality, police brutality, an unjust legal system, are still happening right now. Bigelow’s film could just as easily be called Ferguson and while that does make its messages abundantly clear and easy to agree with, it may also be the biggest drawback. Here Bigelow and screenwriting collaborator Mark Boal roll up their sleeves and deliver their cinematic treatise on racism in the United States. There’s anger here to be sure, but it’s an scattergun anger, displeasure at a distance and what that results in is a film that’s unrelenting but unfocused. Are these Bigelow and Boal’s sleeves to roll up?

A high stakes deal between criminals. Clashes of personality, honour among thieves. A job that goes souther than south. And lots and lots of gun fire. If Free Fire was actually made during the decade in which it’s set, the 1970s, then it’s not hard to imagine its ultra-macho story being played considerably more straightfaced. Ben Wheatley and co-writer and co-editor Amy Jump on the other hand, choose to draw out the crime drama tropes to a near-breaking point, not past the point of absurdity but stopping just shy of it, resulting in a madcap action comedy that winds up its entertainingly clashing cast and then sets them against each other in a shoot-out that lasts for over an hour.

The full programme for the 2017 Audi Dublin International Film Festival has been announced, with a very exciting selection of films. Seàna Kerslake, festival director Grainne Humphreys and Richard Molley, Head of Marketing and Product at Audi Ireland were on hand Wednesday morning at the Hugh Lane Gallery for a photo call for Dublin’s biggest film festival, which spans from the 16th to the 26th of February. The 15th edition since its revival in 2003, the festival’s programme was officially launched at Eden Quay’s Laughter Lounge yesterday evening. Kerslake, star of A Date For Mad Mary and one of Ireland’s fast-rising acting talents, will be on the jury this year for the ADIFF Discovery Award. Featuring eagerly anticipated films from Ireland and around the world and a number of special guests, February 2017 promises to be the most exciting time of the year for Dublin film fans, spanning righy across the screens of the city’s cinemas, including the Savoy, Light House, Cineworld and IFI.

The urge is understandable to avoid a retrospective of the year 2016. Not since Lot’s wife decided to take a cheeky glance back at Sodom has looking back at something been more likely to produce misery and misfortune the way this year has, but that only makes it all the more important to go back over the few bright spots, particularly for movie lovers. 2016 was undoubtedly a great year for Irish cinema, with 9 Oscar nominations and two wins, Irish films showing prominently in festivals around the globe, major stars and filmmakers coming to film on the island and some eye-catching box office success. Of course, 2016 is a year that will always stand out to the writers at Film In Dublin, as this was the year that the site launched and since mid-July we’ve worked hard to show you the positives and the pitfalls of navigating through the fair city of cinema.

With the year almost over, our writers have compiled a list of some of this year’s cinematic highlights. Balloting every member for their own top picks of the year, a consensus was more or less reached on ten outstanding films, cinema that provided a welcome distraction from the horrors of the last twelve months, helped sharpen our focus from the lessons to be learned from the year, or both. We’re sure to have left out some of your favourites; in keeping the list to the very best of the best we’ve had to omit some of our own best loved choices so we’re more than open to suggestions on what else could have been considered. Here though, are Film In Dublin’s picks for the top 10 films of 2016.Read more…

At the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival, Lenny Abrahamson’s Room was the winner of the Grolsch People’s Choice Award, recognition from the TIFF audience that begun Room‘s journey to Oscar-winning success. One year later, the Irish film industry continues to receive international spotlight, with three major films supported by support of Bord Scannán na hÉireann/the Irish Film Board (IFB) being selected for this year’s edition of the prestigious Canadian film festival.